


The Shape of Color

by Dracoduceus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Getting to Know Each Other, Survivor Guilt, favorite colors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 18:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: “We all have our battles and our ghosts to face,” Zarya said and took a long sip of her cocoa. “We do not always need to speak of them and they are not the only things that define a person.”They lapsed into silence while Mei processed that. She bit her lip and looked down at her tea again.“Then what do you want to know?” she asked.“Whatever you want to tell me,” Zarya said. When Mei looked at her helplessly, she smiled. “How about your favorite color?”





	The Shape of Color

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [IchigoWhiskey](https://twitter.com/ichigowhiskey) for the title. 
> 
> Thank you also to [Q](https://twitter.com/quidditchbtch/status/1112533260641300485) for the prompt on twitter. After I did my tweet-long prompt, I just had to continue it. This time, with a little more than a teaspoon of angst ;)

Mei used to like the color blue. It was the sea stretching beyond the horizon, the sky after a day of rain. It was the towering peaks of ice and the groan of glaciers as they moved. 

After Antarctica all she could think of was the cold, the howling wind, the sound of the batteries dying. It was her favorite fuzzy slippers that Opara had given her that were shaped like Yeti and the cryopods that had become her team’s tomb. 

She couldn’t bear to think of the color blue but when she returned, that’s all she had. Even Snowball was blue and some days she just couldn’t bear to look at him. He seemed to understand and those days when her breath hitched as he nudged her awake, he made himself scarce. 

It broke her heart all over again because they were all each other had.

Some days she couldn’t even bear to look at the sky, bright and blue in Gibraltar, or the endless sea that stretched as far as the eye could see. Sometimes she couldn’t bear to hear the sound of the winds on the sea cliffs or the sound of laughter coming from the common areas of the base because all she could think about was her team and how it was only by some terrible twist of fate that she had survived where they hadn’t. 

For so long she had enough on her mind to distract herself from despair. She had to find a way to send out a distress call; she had to survive the long hike through the Antarctic wilderness to McMurdo Station to try and bargain a way to the mainland, or at least some way of communicating with Winston that she was there. For so long she had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as she was horizontal because that was all the energy she had to do. 

Now she had time to think, a dangerous thing. 

Even as she began slogging through 9 years of climate data, she had too much time to sit and think. To wonder if there was a god or a devil out there that punished her by surviving. They called it Survivor’s Guilt; Mei had seen it before, had spoken with people that had experienced it, who lived with it. 

She did not know how empty it would make her feel. How tired.

But like Antarctica, there were things to do. Just because she wasn’t focusing on surviving the bone-deep cold and the treacherous hike through the wilderness didn’t mean that she was idle. 

So she threw herself into her work and changed the color scheme of everything she had the power for: she chose colorblind options for her equipment so that it now showed bizarre combinations of green and violet, anything but blue. As much as she could she avoided wearing it, and forced herself to spend time with her new team to recognize their voices. 

Now she could hear McCree or Genji or Angela and not Opara or Torres or Arrhenius. 

She still could not look at the sky or the sea, but it was a step in the right direction. 

_ Nothing major happens overnight, Snowflake _ , MacReady used to say when she’d remind Mei to get some rest.  _ Shit takes time. _ The thought of her still hurt, was a raw wound that wouldn’t close anytime soon, but her ghost was right. 

She had to be happy with progress.

* * *

It did not snow in Gibraltar, the climate too mild despite the damage that her data suggested. Small miracles for many reasons. 

The new agent, the world-famous RDF Sergeant Aleksandra Zaryanova, was disappointed by this.

In many ways Mei was drawn to her and she couldn’t understand why. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have an accent like any of her former teammates. Perhaps it was because she didn’t try to remind Mei of what had been. 

She had an earnestness about her as she spoke, a strange juxtaposition against her obvious discomfort around omnics. Everyone had questions: her workout regimen, her various trophies and accolades, what the RDF was like. 

Mei had to excuse herself when they began to talk about the bitter Russian cold.

She saw Sergeant Zaryanova later that night and they got to talking over tea. Snowball is sleepy, tucked up against her side, and Sergeant Zaryanova is kind enough to pretend that she has no issue with it, is not unnerved by his presence. 

“I think what I miss most,” Sergeant Zaryanova said wistfully, “is the snow. There was so much of it and the winters were  _ terrible _ . Most people are happy to be away but me?” she laughed, less booming than Reinhardt’s but likely only because it was so late. “I like it. I miss it.” 

Despite herself Mei is curious. She can bury everything down as she drinks her tea and listens to the sergeant’s voice. Sergeant Zaryanova’s face lights up as she talks about the blue sky after a snowstorm, like the world had been scrubbed clean, how the sky changed colors from pale aquamarine to cerulean. 

The reflection of the sun on the fresh snow and ice on the stormy grey seas of the far north. 

Of colorful hats and scarves and coats among the drab buildings and snow ground into grey slush by hundreds of feet and tires. 

Mei could almost imagine it and somehow it wasn’t such a terrible thought. Somehow she didn’t see the ghosts of the Antarctic station and the coffins that it hid, or hear the shrieking of the wind like a hungry beast. 

Late nights like those continued. They were very one-sided conversations, but Mei found herself looking forward to them more and more. The sergeant, who insisted on being called Zarya, seemed happy to fill the silence. Perhaps, Mei mused to herself, she was missing people, too. 

One night Zarya commented, “I feel like I talk too much, Dr. Zhou.” It was the first time that Zarya had called her by name and she had been startled, staring guiltily up at the sergeant. “I feel like I know very little of you.” she reached out and gently patted Snowball’s head, much to the little droid’s chirping delight. 

“Oh,” Mei said quietly and looked down at the surface of her tea. She supposed that was fair; everyone on base knew her already. 

Knew her story, had some idea of her pain and guilt. 

So no one had asked. 

“I’m a climatologist,” Mei began but Zarya shook her head. 

“I know,” she said gently. “You were stationed in Antarctica before the Fall. You survived on your own until you received the Recall message and were able to get back to the Watchpoint. I’m not talking about that.” 

Mei blinked until Snowball chirred, taking cues from her silence and becoming distressed. He left Zarya and darted over to her, bumping his blue casing against her side until she reached out and touched him. 

“We all have our battles and our ghosts to face,” Zarya said and took a long sip of her cocoa. “We do not always need to speak of them and they are not the only things that define a person.” 

They lapsed into silence while Mei processed that. She bit her lip and looked down at her tea again. 

Zarya gave her a moment, standing and moving to the stove to pour herself more cocoa. She brought the small pot over and poured more into Mei’s mug as well. 

“Then what do you want to know?” she asked when Zarya sat down again. 

“Whatever you want to tell me,” Zarya said. When Mei looked at her helplessly, she smiled. “How about your favorite color?” 

She nearly opened her mouth and said  _ blue _ but it really wasn’t. Blue was death in the cold as much as it was life with Snowball. Blue was her favorite pair of sweatpants that MacReady had given her, and the color of her favorite mug that she had left behind in Antarctica. 

But…

She looked up at Zarya, at her wide earnest smile. “Pink,” she blurted, her eyes on the pink scar across the sergeant’s face, on the light catching on the bright strands of her dyed hair. Mei thought back to the flush on her face as she described the winter, of playing in the snow with her comrades and making snowmen and snow angels and having snowball fights. 

“Pink?” Zarya asked, looking pleased and surprised. “Why pink?”

Mei surprised herself by smiling. “It’s safer.” 

As ever Zarya didn’t press, seemed to understand on an instinctive level. Instead she smiled and didn’t ask more, but she did reach out hesitantly and touch the tips of her calloused fingers to the back of Mei’s wrist. 

Looking up, Mei found that she was flushed pink and happy. Her smile was wide as she tapped Mei’s wrist again:  _ I hear you, I’m here if you want me to be, I understand _ . When Zarya moved to pull back, Mei surprised herself again by twisting her hand, catching Zarya’s fingers with her own. 

Zarya froze, blinked, that flush darkening over her cheeks. Then she scooted closer and let their fingers tangle together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come and yell at me on twitter at [Dracoduceus](https://twitter.com/dracoduceus). If that's not your thing, I can also be found on tumblr at [ClassyWastelandBread](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com/) but I haven't been quite as active there. 
> 
> ~DC


End file.
